Alex Jones's Demented Rant Over Las Vegas Shootings

[Horatius]

The problem is that these folks "dumb enough to not only believe it, but to act on it," are the last ones who will listen to anyone telling them anything different; people like these are a perfect demonstration of the power of the echo chamber at work.

Yes, but the hope is, if we can cut out the middle-ground stupid people who are "stupid enough to listen, but not to act", we can reduce the size of the echo chamber enough that the really stupid people won't be exposed to the nonsense in the first place. It's sort of like building a firebreak for stupidity.

 

[turingtest]

I think the families of these victims should all sue Jones. It's clear that his nonsense was hugely influential on the shooters, and he should reasonably have known that he was creating a risk of people doing exactly this.

Much as I despise AJ, and would love to see him get a comeuppance, I don't see this as having any legal legs. I think an implicit assumption of the freedom of speech is a reliance on the ability of the folks listening to it to reasonably act on what they hear; and you can't have any appreciable freedom of speech if the assumption is otherwise. If it hadn't been AJ, it would have been someone (or something) else that set the Millers off (in fact, they remind me, as a pair, of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, in Capote's In Cold Blood, in being a pairing that set each other off; if the two had never met, it's possible neither would have ever amounted to more than harmless losers).

 

[jaydeehess]

So the recent mass shootings are all staged to facilitate a coup, which angers the conspiracy theorists. These theorists then lash out... and the rest of the conspiracy theorists label their fallen conspiracy theorists as "in on the conspiracy."

So essentially there is no fighting/beating the conspiracy.

Call to action met and implemented >>> Decry actions taken, as false flag to destroy the movenment calling for action >>> Requires greater urgency for action >>> Call to action met and implemented >>> ........


positive feedback loop aka circular argument

 

[LaurelHS]

His posts on Infowars depict an angry, down-on-his-luck man who blamed his woes—decaying teeth, lack of health insurance, and inability to find work—on the tyranny of government.

He's reported to have been a methamphetamine user, but yeah, it's the government's fault he had dental problems.

 

[Snorkio]

Much as I despise AJ, and would love to see him get a comeuppance, I don't see this as having any legal legs. I think an implicit assumption of the freedom of speech is a reliance on the ability of the folks listening to it to reasonably act on what they hear; and you can't have any appreciable freedom of speech if the assumption is otherwise. If it hadn't been AJ, it would have been someone (or something) else that set the Millers off (in fact, they remind me, as a pair, of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, in Capote's In Cold Blood, in being a pairing that set each other off; if the two had never met, it's possible neither would have ever amounted to more than harmless losers).

Not that the US would ever do it, but couldn't they designate his audience a "terrorist group"?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/nypd-spying-mosques_n_3827567.html

Before the NYPD could target mosques as terrorist groups, it had to persuade a federal judge to rewrite rules governing how police can monitor speech protected by the First Amendment.

The rules stemmed from a 1971 lawsuit, dubbed the Handschu case after lead plaintiff Barbara Handschu, over how the NYPD spied on protesters and liberals during the Vietnam War era.

David Cohen, a former CIA executive who became NYPD's deputy commissioner for intelligence in 2002, said the old rules didn't apply to fighting against terrorism.

Cohen told the judge that mosques could be used "to shield the work of terrorists from law enforcement scrutiny by taking advantage of restrictions on the investigation of First Amendment activity."

NYPD lawyers proposed a new tactic, the TEI, that allowed officers to monitor political or religious speech whenever the "facts or circumstances reasonably indicate" that groups of two or more people were involved in plotting terrorism or other violent crime.

Although this is more about monitoring than prosecuting. Hopefully there would be a favorable slipperiness to that slope.

 

[gmanontario]

Interesting, though, that he referred to his gut as evidence. Usually he goes on some rant about all the secret evidence nobody wants you to see...

I'd be curious to know if he ever cited his gut before.

That's a heck of a lot of evidence he's citing.

 

[arayder]

Alex Jones has it arse backwards.

The third victim, Joseph Wilcox, had a license to carry a concealed hand gun and confronted the shooter, Jerad Miller, in the Walmart.

Wilcox drew his handgun not realizing that Amanda Miller was part of the shooting spree and got himself shot dead, by her, for his trouble.

When one talks about America's pro-gun laws one has to recognize that concealed carry laws allow relatively untrained individuals to carry handguns. In Nevada to get a concealed carry license one has to take a training course, pass a background check and demonstrate what is in effect minimal competency on a shooting range.

As insensitive as it may be to say so, it appears likely Wilcox violated the the first rule of gun fighting. . .seek cover! Plus in a high stress situations like this a good guy shooter usually gets tunnel vision and doesn't recognize any threat other than the bad guy he first sees.

The optimal position for somebody confronting Millers would have been behind a large, hard object with a tiny sliver of his body (the gun hand and an aiming eye) exposed. And that person would need to be trained to recognize multiple threats.

The only way the average Joe is going to get this right is if he has trained and trained and trained.

IMHO, Alex Jones has it all wrong. The problem isn't that some conspiracy wants to take away guns in America. One problem is that too many well meaning but untrained individuals are carrying handguns.

 

[catsmate]

So the recent mass shootings are all staged to facilitate a coup, which angers the conspiracy theorists. These theorists then lash out... and the rest of the conspiracy theorists label their fallen conspiracy theorists as "in on the conspiracy."

So essentially there is no fighting/beating the conspiracy.

This is it in a nutshell; everything is part of the conspiracy, so nothing the CTers can do will work, therefore they have the perfect excuse to do nothing but rant.

That's a heck of a lot of evidence he's citing.

 

[Chaos]

One problem is that too many well meaning but untrained individuals are carrying handguns.

Another, bigger problem is way too many definitely NOT well-meaning individuals of varying levels of training carrying handguns.

A third problem, almost as big, is that the untrained well-meaning individuals think that guns protect them against not-so-well-meaning individuals with better training.

 

[dudalb]

Another Alex Jones Demented Rant, little different then his hundred of other Demented Rants.

 

[Pacal]

Alex Jones is a simple BS artist. He doesn't care what so ever if what he shrieks about is true or not. What he cares about is how it all makes him rich and famous.

 

[fuelair]

Interesting, though, that he referred to his gut as evidence. Usually he goes on some rant about all the secret evidence nobody wants you to see...

I'd be curious to know if he ever cited his gut before.

..Not directly but it is a well known fact that he pulls all his material out of his or someone else's anus.

 

[Aardvark422]

..Not directly but it is a well known fact that he pulls all his material out of his or someone else's anus.

The evidence might start in his gut but he has to let it digest before presenting it.

 

[000063]

This is why the other 99.2% of the planet laugh at at America.

I've read that after the Elliot Rodger shooting, the British press were portraying him as representative of Americans, despite the fact that he was actually British-Asian biracial.

And then there was the time Piers Morgan bought Jones onto his show, ostensibly as a representative of "pro-gun" folks in the US, instead of, y'know, a kook with a large fanbase of other kooks.

Honestly, I'm still convinced that few people hate Americans more than other Americans.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

New! Alex's Famous Prechewed Woo Poo! Not available in stores. Order now!

 

[jaydeehess]

Another, bigger problem is way too many definitely NOT well-meaning individuals of varying levels of training carrying handguns.

A third problem, almost as big, is that the untrained well-meaning individuals think that guns protect them against not-so-well-meaning individuals with better training.

In last week's shooting of five RCMP officers in Moncton, the perpetrator was a well trained bad person who simply walked about in a residential neighbourhood until calls from residents had police showing up to investigate. He targeted police, well trained good guys with guns.
Laying ambush or otherwise employing the element of surprise trumps good guy with gun every time.

Anecdotally, I saw a gun rights advocate on FOX use this incident to illustrate " strict gun laws in Canada don't prevent mass shootings" . That is specious argumentation at its idiot best. Robbery has been strictly outlawed in all organized territories for millennia, often the punishment is corporal including amputation, or capital by various gruesome means, and yet, robbery is apparently not prevented since it still occurs in every jurisdiction. ( perhaps less so in, for instance, Singapore)

 

[Chaos]

In last week's shooting of five RCMP officers in Moncton, the perpetrator was a well trained bad person who simply walked about in a residential neighbourhood until calls from residents had police showing up to investigate. He targeted police, well trained good guys with guns.
Laying ambush or otherwise employing the element of surprise trumps good guy with gun every time.

I would include the idea to lay an ambush, and the ability to successfully do so, in my definition of "well-trained".

That does not mean that I consider the RCMP officer badly-trained because they were ambushed - I cannot blame them for not expecting a criminal to target them specifically, after all most criminals consider police something to be avoided, not targetted.

 

[dudalb]

Alex Jones is a simple BS artist. He doesn't care what so ever if what he shrieks about is true or not. What he cares about is how it all makes him rich and famous.

The 180 Degree turn he made after the 2008 election from pandering to the wacky Left to pandering to the Wacky Right proves that.

 

[LaurelHS]

I would include the idea to lay an ambush, and the ability to successfully do so, in my definition of "well-trained".

That does not mean that I consider the RCMP officer badly-trained because they were ambushed - I cannot blame them for not expecting a criminal to target them specifically, after all most criminals consider police something to be avoided, not targetted.

It's not a common occurrence, but RCMP officers have been ambushed before, most notoriously in Mayerthorpe, Alberta in 2005.

 

[fuelair]

It's not a common occurrence, but RCMP officers have been ambushed before, most notoriously in Mayerthorpe, Alberta in 2005.

And, I recall an older case back when "Usher, in those days, was keeping order in the district. But, before he'd ridden 30 miles the McClain boys (three brothers) shot him down (they were riding with Alec Hare at the time)."